Under a photo posted of her on a Facebook memorial for the victims of the Sandy Hook School shooting, more than a hundred were calling Anne Marie Murphy a hero.

"Anne Marie, you were a light in the darkness," Lillian Lupo Barry, of Newtown, said.

In an interview at their Katonah, N.Y. home where Murphy grew up, Newsday reported that Murphy's 86-year-old parents were told by a "first-responder" that she died a hero, shielding her students from the shooter.

Murphy, 52, of Sandy Hook, was reportedly a special education teacher. Her profession prompted many on Twitter to urge donations to Autism foundations in her memory.

"She died doing what she loved," Murphy's mother, Alice McGowan, said of her daughter, who she described as a "happy soul."

Newsday reported that Alice and her husband, Hugh, were told their 52-year-old daughter was discovered above the bodies of her deceased students, shielding them, according to the first-responder.

For that, many on Facebook have taken to calling her a protector of "little angels."

Danielle Richey, who apparently worked with Murphy at a job outside of the school, sadly praised her co-worker.

"RIP Anne Marie Murphy. What you did was amazing," Richey said. "You're truly a hero."